No Oscar for Hancock’s starring role in Partygate docu-drama - Susan Morrison

Slogans are a snappy way to get a good point over. Remember lockdown? Snappy slogan overload.

Susan Morrison

“Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives”. Did what it said on the tin, and was so good they promptly changed it for “Stay Alert, Control the Virus, Save Lives”. Tricky. You can’t actually see a virus.

We couldn’t skulk about grabbing our shopping done up like Ripley in Aliens with one of those flame thrower doo-dahs waiting to turn a passing scuttling Covid bug into toast.

“Eat out to help out”, more of a plea, really, complete the horror of suddenly looking up to find Rishi Sunak heading your way with a plate of carbonara and side order of new-variant C-19.

“Hands, Face, Space”, although notably not Matt Hancock. He forgot that one when he moved in for a smooch with a woman who was at that time not his wife.

She’s his bidey-in now. Probably had a nice quiet time recently while Mr Hancock was on telly again, this time playing soldiers.

I only know that because after this week’s ‘Bake-Off’ the continuity announcer urged us to stay and watch, “the country’s favourite stars and Matt Hancock all take part in SAS: Who Dares Wins”.

Mr Hancock has a full time job, incidentally. He’s a Member of Parliament.

The last time I checked, the job description said nothing about abseiling down a cliff face while screaming your head off.

Apparently he wants to challenge himself, and Celeb SAS “opens your eyes and makes you look into yourself”. I have a horrible feeling he’s going to do that and find there’s nothing there.

What we didn’t realise during lockdown that Number 10 had another slogan, and it was ‘Party on Down, Dudes’. If you haven’t seen Channel 4’s ‘Partygate’, it’ll be on catch up.

Watch your blood pressure.It’s a docu-drama based on the shenanigans in Number 10 at the height of Covid. Mixed in with dramatised scenes of the parties, all 15 of them, are interviews with real people and footage of actual funerals with people sitting far apart, banned from comforting the bereaved.

It’s a tough watch. Made me grateful that we are not permitted to bear arms. Let me put it this way, had a twelve bore shotgun been to hand, the telly might not have survived.

The scale of the partying was utterly baffling, and with no thought to the laws and rules the police were imposing right outside their doors.

These entitled tories behaved like teenagers whose parents were away at the caravan for the weekend.

The reek of entitlement from these brats is as pungent as post-party hangover armpits in a crowded lift. The rules they made were for the peasantry. And royalty. Even the late queen sat alone and masked at her husband’s funeral.

It almost made me nostalgic for Margaret Thatcher. I know! Crazy old leftie that I am, but trust me, I suspect she would have handbagged every single one of those rule-breaking boozy oiks into a coma.

Number 10 Downing Street became the most fined address in the UK for Covid. They paid £50 each.

The average Covid related fine outside of Partytown was £100.

Roll on general election. It’s time to give them all a chance to pursue new opportunities and discover themselves.